the book about women helping women, making history

According to my publisher at Fernwood today, a Quebec-based publisher is “strongly interested” in having Runaway Wives translated into French. This would be wonderful.

The only problem is they’re asking for some context on Quebec.

It makes sense; any readers there would want to know what happened in their home province. I’d like to know myself. Unfortunately, I don’t.

My book focussed only on the first five shelters — so Toronto, Aldergrove, Calgary, Saskatoon and Vancouver — with a taste of Edmonton tossed in. (As a proud westerner, let me just point it out yet again that four of the first five shelters began west of Saskatchewan.)

But I’d love to be translated into our other official language, and have it available for French-speaking communities across Canada. So I’m trying to figure out how to do this, and still keep the book intact.

If anyone knows anyone who was connected with the feminist movement of the 1970s in Quebec, please contact me. (Je parle un peu de francais, avec le vocabulaire d’un enfant.) Until I know what happened there, I really can’t say whether it can be woven into my narrative. But I’m definitely intrigued.